An appeals court in Georgia on Oct. 25 declined to expedite its review of an appeal challenging a judge’s order that requires county election officials to certify election results by the legally established deadline.
The ruling effectively reinforces a judge’s earlier ruling this week mandating that board members follow certification procedures for the upcoming November election regardless of irregularities or suspected fraud.
Georgia law mandates that county election superintendents certify election results by 5 p.m. on the Monday after the election. If that Monday falls on a federal holiday (as it does this year), the deadline shifts to Tuesday.
The Georgia Court of Appeals’ Oct. 25 ruling came in response to a lawsuit by Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Elections and Registrations, a primarily Democratic area encompassing Atlanta.
Unable to observe the county’s election results and processes herself, Adams voted against certifying the results of the presidential primary election held in March.
In her lawsuit, she sought clarification regarding the extent of the election director’s role and her own rights on the election board. She filed the lawsuit after the county’s appointed election director allegedly denied her multiple requests for access to election results and processes.
“Plaintiff swore an oath to ‘prevent fraud, deceit, and abuse’ in Fulton County elections and to ‘make a true and perfect return,’” Adams’s attorneys wrote in the initial complaint. “These obligations are frustrated by the repeated and continuing refusal to allow Plaintiff access to, and direct knowledge of, the information Plaintiff reasonably believes she needs to execute her duties faithfully and thoroughly.”
“No election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance,” the judge wrote in his opinion.
He also suggested that Adams could file an election contest in the courts if she uncovered fraud, abuse, or other irregularities.
“However, any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so,” he wrote.
In his ruling, McBurney held that election certification is “a purely ministerial task that gives its performer no discretion to exclude some votes while counting others.”
He reasoned that allowing election superintendents to “play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge” and refuse to certify results “because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud” would effectively silence Georgia voters.
“Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen,” McBurney wrote.
Following McBurney’s order, Adams appealed on Oct. 23, asking the Georgia Court of Appeals to review the ruling on an expedited basis.
Her legal team argued that if the appeal were to follow a normal timeline, the case wouldn’t be resolved before Election Day, making the expedited review critical to address her concerns in time for the election.
The court wrote in its order: “Appellant’s emergency motion for relief is hereby denied. The petition fails to establish that invocation of this Court’s Rule 40 (b) jurisdiction is warranted under the facts of this case.”
